At first, the ceremony marking Nakba Day at Tel Aviv University
(which took place Monday) didn´t attract headlines, even when its
supporters tried to shove it down our throats via social networking
sites. The event only grew out of proportion and turned into a full-
blown scandal -- to the delight of its organizers -- after well-
meaning Zionist groups exalted the effort to mourn the Palestinian
loss. Then politicians responded, a commotion erupted in the Knesset,
and MK Ahmad Tibi (Ra´am Ta´al) was awarded a platform for his
arrogant remarks. The media smelled blood and had a field day. That´s
how a marginal ceremony turned into a hot-button issue.

Meanwhile, the Nakba has become rooted in Israeli discourse using the
techniques that Stalin´s propaganda agent Willi Munzenberg developed
in the former Soviet Union to employ in Western countries. Munzenberg
understood that the person who assigns blame in a society also wields
the power to acquit others. The radical Left has worked for decades
to transform the establishment of Israel from a historical miracle
into an indictment. These are the same tactics that Communist
revolutionaries used in democratic societies and that the late
journalist Eugene Methvin described as the "technology of social
demolition," in which manipulation of the masses leads to complete
destruction. This is precisely what commemoration and legitimization
of the Nakba achieve as well: to define Israel as the focal point for
Palestinian and regional blame, and by extension as the world´s moral
abscess.

This approach aims to instill public discourse about the War of
Independence and the creation of Israel with terms that feign
innocence, like the "civilian disaster," "human suffering"
and "recognition of the injustice caused to Palestinians" that are
the "basis for any political discussion." Any intelligent person
understands that private suffering is not the focus here;
the "injustice" is the very creation of the Jewish state. That is the
driving force behind the Nakba commemoration ceremony. All of the
talk about "humanism" is simply a guise for the delegitimization of
Israel and the campaign against its existence.

No one is trying to prevent anyone from remembering. We also remember
that foreigners stole our land while we were in exile, and with the
return to Zion in the 19th century, a steady stream of Arabs from the
region came there seeking work. Their children continue to be eternal
refugees rather than integrate into the surrounding countries, in
large part thanks to the U.N.

Yes, there was a war. Villages were destroyed, creating refugees
(only a minority were expelled). At the same time, 850,000 Jews were
expelled from Arab countries and were smuggled into Israel where they
lived in tents and tin shacks. Yet while the Jewish community in
newly founded Israel absorbed their brothers and sisters, rendering
the transit camps unnecessary, Arab countries left refugee camps
intact, to be used as another tool in their war against the Jewish
state. Those who commemorate the Nakba continue this strategy, and
their efforts to inflate this issue must not be supported.